


the wheel breaks

by Grand_Phoenix



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game), Tales of Berseria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Atonement - Freeform, Canon? What Canon?, Dark, Eventual Happy Ending, Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Hopeful Ending, I wanted to throw in Velvet/Eleanor but given the canon context I thought it'd be out of place, One Shot, but look these tags aren't just for window dressing so a Fix-It DOES happen, heavy emphasis on "of sorts" b/c wtf knows what's going on with the Greater Scope plot, this also runs on the theory that consuming Innominat's power balances out Velvet's malevolence, this runs on the idea that LN2 is a sequel so please keep that in mind as you read this, very brief mentions of Velvet/Niko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29676534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grand_Phoenix/pseuds/Grand_Phoenix
Summary: Another chance has shown itself. (Or: Velvet's eternal slumber breaks and, whether or not this is the judgment that has been passed to atone for her sins, she stumbles upon Six before Mono and changes the course of destiny.)
Relationships: Velvet & Six (Little Nightmares) & Mono (Little Nightmares)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	the wheel breaks

**Author's Note:**

> So I got into the Little Nightmares fandom a couple nights before 2 launched when I watched Sloot (a Twitch streamer) played it live. I was like "?? What is this??" but also "Wait, I've heard of this, this got a sequel??" and after a few hours I was hooked.
> 
> (This was also written at least a week before Tarsier said they're done working on the IP due to BamCo owning the rights, so I don't know whether to say this is just sheer coincidence or rotten luck lol)
> 
> I think I had ToB on the brain during this time, so naturally my brain took one look at the thought of Velvet's Big Sister Instinct going Defcon-1 seeing Six and Mono brute-forcing their way through whatever the hell is going on in the Pale City and beyond and ran away with it the same way her first thoughts go _"MY KIDS NOW"_.
> 
> So Found Family _and_ a Fix-It in a Grand Phoenix fic? I can make exceptions. Sometimes ;P

There are three things that continue to jump at Velvet over and over again:

One: it’s raining. It hasn’t stopped raining since she woke up here, in the woods, the trees, the rocks, the grass towering over her in darkness barely banished by fog and lantern light hanging high on the branches.

Which led to the second point of observation: She’s _small_ , the size of toys very young children not even out of diapers would be apt to play. The kind of toys that were just big enough to close their fists around and their teething mouths unable to suck in all the way so as not to swallow and choke on them. They’re toys a parent would put away in cupboards or drawers when the day is winding down, done simply as breathing. Except those same objects were now enormous now, the doors skyscrapers. The toys she had seen would be grains of sand spilling between her fingers if she were normal size.

Which led to the final realization that made the world at her feet shift: She’s awake, and not in the arms of the godling reborn in her brother’s body, forever consumed in blight and flame above and beyond Desolation.

No more summers fishing by the river or winters building snowmen in Aball. No more breakfasts at the table or dinners over an open fire grilling slabs of prickleboar meat. No more strolling through the fields picking the brightest princessias and trying—failing—to twist and connect the stems together so their crown-shapes would stay in place, imagining the shock and eventual warmth on Niko’s face when she presented them to her. No more Celica and Arthur coming over with little Phi, who would pry himself from their grasp and rush over as fast as his legs would allow, reaching out to her as she would reach out to him.

Eternity. Another thing torn from her grasp.

But that is nothing new.

_Just keep going,_ Velvet thinks, holding the little girl’s stare. She stands beside the massive double-barreled gun that’s smoking lightly on the floor. Her ears must still be ringing, as hers are, or perhaps she doesn’t notice. She’s hardly spoken much since she ran out of the house, startled first by the panel to the room being blown in and then by the sight of the daemon’s claw held palm-side up to her. It had only been once Velvet caught up to her in the dip under the rocky overhang right as the huntsman charged down his porch that the girl decided to follow, across the gorge where the plank bridge refused to stay up and through the swampy muck that made it difficult to move and breathe in. Her eyes are covered by shaggy brown hair cropped close to her face. There’s nary an expression to be had.

She’s not much older than Phi. Maybe younger.

_Just keep going,_ she repeats, unmoving.

Then, another voice, much like her own, accompanies the thought: _Go where?_

On the edge of hearing, water whispers. Another river? Or something bigger? By how much?

_Too much,_ it says.

_You’re not bound to this place,_ _and neither is she. What could you possibly give each other?_

That’s when she hears it, and so does the girl. Her mouth falls open in a tiny O, and then she doubles over, coughing into a fist.

Her stomach grumbles.

_Oh,_ Velvet thinks, and manages to keep her feet planted on the ground when the understanding hits. Then, _Oh,_ again, and she watches the girl straighten up and back away, hands still crossed in front of her. Her head whips up, her hair bouncing with the motion. Teeth grit and jaw set that brought her dimples to prominence.

Pain.

Hunger.

Darkness.

Velvet swallows. “I know,” she says, and the words barely come forth. Soft, feathery, that are louder in the head than spoken. Yet the girl perks up, her jaw relaxing but the rest of her guarded. Cornered. “I know,” Velvet repeats, louder and clearer. “I feel the same way.”

The girl looks at her. She uncrosses her arms. One bare, pale, dirty foot is pointing toward the wooden crate set under the open window, yet she makes no motion.

Velvet nods. “I’m Velvet. What’s your name?”

The girl doesn’t answer, and instead of repeating herself Velvet waits. “Name,” she says.

“Yeah. Your name. What people call you.”

Another pause. Then: “...she called me Six.”

“She?”

“A girl I knew. In the Nest.” The girl wrings her hands on a patch of smock, back and forth, back and forth. “She gave it to me. I don’t remember why.” She lets go of the cloth, hands falling limp at her sides. “She died,” she says, quietly. “I watched her fall. Into the ocean.”

Velvet closes her eyes, inhales, holds it, holds it, exhales. Swallows past the lump that’s blooming in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“She had a yellow raincoat that fit her very big. When I came down the cliff, it was floating on the shore. Had it on me ever since, until….” She falls silent.

“Until…?”

The girl—Six—shakes her head. Then she picks it up, loosens the shoulders from their hunch, and a coldness settles over her. “Don’t follow me, if you know what’s good for you.”

Velvet shrugs. “Why?”

“Because I...I…Because I said so, that’s why!” Six exclaims. “Besides,” she adds, voice pitching low enough for Velvet to hear. “You may be small, but you’re still a grown-up.”

“Yeah,” Velvet says. “I am.”

“And you’re a monster. Those bandages don’t fool _me_.” She points an accusatory finger at her left arm.

Velvet can’t help but give her a small, humorless smile. “No, you’re right. I’m as monstrous as they come. I’ve killed many people and many things with this hand. I housed their souls as I butchered my way across the world.” The smile disappears. “There were many of them.”

“Were any of them kids?”

“None that I know of. At least, not directly. But all those deaths? All that destruction? I did all of that going after the man that took everything away from me, and in the end I got what I wanted. But it doesn’t matter because it was all for nothing. He and I did what we did despite knowing better, even if it did feel right at times.” Velvet shrugs, hands turned palm-up, and doesn’t react when Six flinches away. “That’s my story. Or about as much as you want to hear. I won’t stop you, if you don’t want me around. I’ve said my piece, after all, and you can take it for what you will. But when I said I know how you feel, I mean it.”

“How could you?” Six pouts. “You couldn’t possibly know what it is I’ve been through!”

“No,” Velvet acquiesces gently. “No, I don’t know.”

“Then grown-ups like you shouldn’t judge!” Another growl from her stomach, soft and prodding like a maternal reminder, and Six puts her hand against it with a gasp. Her head snaps up toward Velvet, and Velvet’s chest aches with painful familiarity at the scared, borderline feral edge radiating from her shaded eyes. “I-I’m just hungry, is all!” the girl insists. “I-It’s nothing!”

“You’re cursed, aren’t you?” Velvet says, and it’s not a question. “It’s not just food you want. You want blood. Meat. Souls. Anything that’ll blunt the urge to lash out. You remember it all. You can’t get rid of it and you don’t know why.” Outside, the water continues to mumble secrets, more prominent now with the lack of rain. The dull, subterranean groaning that’s scraping on her brain sounds like a bell, each toll long and somber in its intermittence.

It’s hard to tell, but Velvet thinks she can see the girl’s mouth tremble. “It’s nothing,” she laments. “It’s really, really nothing….”

“No. No, it’s not nothing.” She lets the quiet fill the space between them, contemplating her next move. Wondering, briefly and very futilely, how Six will react and what will come of it, and that does it. That compels her to take a cautious step forward. Six doesn’t bolt. Six flinches. “I’m cursed, too, you know. The man I killed made me that way, and as far as I’m concerned I’m pretty sure I’m stuck with it forever. I...haven’t fed in ages.” And how much, how much time has passed in the dream?, is the question that has crossed her mind upon waking, and she hadn’t even considered, until now, consuming the giant huntsman with the daemonic arm. Had not felt the gnawing in her belly and the restless twinge underneath the bandages like a phantom that could not be put to rest until it was sated all this time.

It’s...calm.

She has never felt more calm than in this moment.

Six stays where she is as Velvet gets closer, hunching more within herself, arms positioned for cover now instead of curbing the pangs. She’s all but crouched on the ground now—nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The open window is a forgotten memory.

Velvet stops before her and notes the shivering, the one-sided inner battle over fight or flight. That dark, wet head is tilted down, stare incomprehensible. She does not move.

_Go on,_ the scene tells her.

_Go on. Do it._

She reaches out, fingertips grazing the back of Six’s head.

No sweet lies murmuring in her ear about blissful, complete satiation. No throbbing pain in her ligaments or the jackhammer pounding in the palm of her hand.

She pulls her into a hug and holds here there, her grip firm but tender.

Six gasps. Velvet hears her snatch the chains dangling from her coat and anticipates the struggle and breakdown that is to come, but after a moment the girl leans against her and buries her face in her stomach, the torn fabrics of the old hunting shirt dyed red with the blood of daemons beasts, malakhim, humans.

(Friends and family alike.)

“I can show you how to control it,” Velvet says, “if you’ll let me. That hunter can’t be the only person around here. There should be others across the water—more prey, bigger than him. I don’t know how much good it will do, or how different it is here, but where I came from the size of what I consumed curbed the hunger for a longer period of time. Cleared the fog in my head until it came back. Maybe the same will work for you.”

Nothing. Her breath is warm on her skin, the trembling in her body subsiding little by little. “I don’t,” Six begins, “I don’t know how I got cursed. I woke up that day with it, and it’s been with me ever since. Getting worse and worse...until I didn’t want meat anymore.” She stops, takes a breath. “I can’t even look at food anymore.”

“Yeah...Yeah, I know. When it happened to me everything I put in my mouth lost its taste…everything but the blood. Because it’s always blood in the stories that never goes away. I hated it then, and I still hate it now. But it’s kept me alive when I couldn’t stomach anything else. Blood...and souls The meat’s just an afterthought.” She cards her fingers through her hair, ignores how quickly the wraps get drenched doing so. “What do you say, Six?”

“...It’s not the same,” Six mumbles. “I don’t need my arms to feed. I just...need to know someone’s there and...they’re gone. Just like that. No blood. No meat. Just...them. But I haven’t gotten hungry like that in a while. I haven’t felt the urge to eat since….” A back and forth motion of her head.

“That’s fine,” Velvet says. “It doesn’t matter how you feed. What matters is you get something in you.”

“…I could eat you, you know.” Six picks her head up and stares at her. Stares the cold, thoughtful stare Velvet used to wear when the Abbey used to throw her next meal down the hole. Creatures twice her size and slavering maws that could tear a person in two with one wrench of their necks, dazed from their fall as they forced themselves up off the floor, scenting the air for the new aroma that filled their brains and clenched their stomachs. “I might turn around one day and take my chance. I bet your soul is worth a lifetime.”

Velvet hums, low and guttural in her throat. “Is it, Six? Is my soul really worth that much?”

“I don’t know. But you said you’re a monster. Maybe a monster’s soul will make me never hungry ever again.”

“And maybe it’ll never be enough. I had but one soul to feast on for eternity, and he is not here with me. The rules might be different here, or they might not, but either way a soul as small and insignificant as I will abate your curse. We demons need power. Strength. There is nothing more great and wonderful than conquering the hunters that have put the fear of gods in your heart and becoming what you once feared. Don’t you agree?”

Six doesn’t answer. Neither does Velvet. The night grows.

“They’ll be coming after you,” Six says. “They won’t care if you’re hunter or hunted.”

“Good. All the better to catch them unawares.”

“You’ll make too much noise. You wear too much metal stuff on you.”

“That’s okay.” A corner of her mouth tilts up in a smirk. “It’ll be the last thing they hear.”

“...You might get me killed.”

“...No,” Velvet says, and presses the girl’s head to her again. Minds her grip, holds back the memories at bay threatening to emerge from the fog of time and desperation and overwhelming nostalgia. “I won’t let that happen.” Not a shake in her voice. “Never again.” Not a sliver of emotion.

She could’ve held Laphi like this, the night of the Advent.

She could’ve held Niko like this, her body still warm on the ground.

She could’ve held Arthur like this, when he took his final, blood-laden breaths.

(She could have done a lot of things.)

Six does not protest. Six does not move. She simply breathes, her shivering gone now. Warmth flooding over her, as much as the warmth of a monster like Velvet and her weather-heavy clothes will allow her in this wretched room.

She lets go of the chains and slowly, tentatively wraps her arms around Velvet’s waist.

“...Okay,” Six says. “Okay,” she repeats, louder. “You can help me. But you have to keep up, okay? You gotta be fast, and if we’re fast we can get out of here.

“Maybe,” she adds, and it’s said so quietly that Velvet almost doesn’t catch it, “maybe we’ll finally be safe.”

(Safe. Safe.

What a lovely word.)

* * *

(They manage to get out of the house and hitch a ride on a sturdy plank they push out onto the open water, and for a long time they sail toward the looming towers that bend toward them the closer they get to shore. “I think I know this place,” Six tells Velvet, as they stand to watch the land come into view. “I read it on a map. It’s called the Pale City.”

In the water there are large, rectangular boxes with thin tines, like weather vanes, sticking out of the top. Six says these are _television sets_ , or TVs, and when you turn them on they would show moving pictures of people that perform a play of sorts. Velvet soaks this in with feline attentiveness, but the thought of putting on a play, a television show, that would be broadcast from across the country—the entire world—makes a part of her die a little on the inside. If the Empyreans sent her here as punishment, then Velvet is forever grateful Magilou didn’t get dragged along for whatever purpose only gods can divine. 

Thunder rumbles in the distance when they’ve made clear of the beach and seek shelter in a school building, but already Velvet can tell this place is but another den of darkness and disquiet that’s been touched by an alien otherness beyond the kind the reborn Innominat was afflicted with. There are scrawling, chalky sketches of eyeballs, tally marks, and dogs mid-urination all over the walls.

It’s disorienting, being this small. She motions for Six to take her hand, the one that isn’t bandaged, and Six takes it. It’s so much smaller than her. It centers her. It’s like going on an adventure with Laphi again.

There’s an instance where they have to hide behind a fallen locker, and from across the hall they watch the shadow of a woman’s neck stretch back down to her shoulders and disappear out of sight, a noise like a hungering werewolf and grinding gears uttering from her. Velvet makes a shushing motion to Six and shows her the blade she carefully slides out of its sheath.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Except it does, when Velvet watches a child avoid all but getting splattered from another locker being shoved over in the room in front of them, and the ceramic children come jumping out from the cabinets and behind the woodwork and insulation to assail him. He’s wearing an open trenchcoat where one corner gets snared by, and a paper bag over his head with two holes cut into it that’s about to be yanked off him from a cackling student who’s about to grab him by the collar.

Velvet doesn’t think. Later she will remember she snarled a warning for Six to get down and hide, but in that moment she shoves her away, extends the blade, and bull-rushes into the group that surrounds him.

When she comes to, she stands in a circle of dust and shattered pottery. Her daemon arm pulsates; there is no malevolence, only the sensation of lack of use.

The bag is on the floor, as is the boy. His hair is dark like Six’s, his eyes a deep shade of brown.

He gapes at her.

Velvet wills the claw to recede and, as her arm reforms, she stoops low and picks up the paper bag. “Here,” she says, holding it out to him. “I think this is yours.”

“Th-Thanks,” he stammers, and after a bout of hesitation takes it from her. Puts it over him, adjusts it so that only the pair of black holes replace his eyes for vision, which peer up at her with what seems to be blinking wonder. “Thank you,” he says again.

“Velvet?” Six’s voice, and footsteps pad up from behind to stand behind her, away from the pieces. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry I pushed you. What about you?” she asks the boy, and offers him her hand.

“I’m fine.” He grabs it and lets her pull him onto his feet. _Barefoot,_ Velvet notes, just like Six. “Thanks for saving me, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome. What’s a kid like you doing in a place like this?”

The kid cocks his head at her. “...I dunno. I was kind of trying to find somewhere to keep warm and dry while it passes. But then I saw the teacher do her weird neck thing, and the dolls running around the halls, so I looked for a place to hide. There are traps everywhere, the floorboards are rigged. I ended up stepping on one and that’s when they got the jump on me! I’m glad you came around, ma’am, because if you didn’t...if you didn’t, then I...well,” the kid wrings his hands shyly, “I’d be a goner if it weren’t for you.”

“At least you’re okay,” Velvet says, and before she can stop herself she pats him gently on the head. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Nuh-uh, ma’am. Bit banged up, but I’m alright!”

“That’s good. And it’s Velvet. This is Six. What’s your name, kid?”

“My name’s Mono, ma’am—I mean, Velvet!”

“Doesn’t matter what you refer to me as. Either is fine. As you can see, Mono, we’re looking to get out of this joint. It’s not safe here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere!” Six exclaims. “But we’re gonna find a way out. Away from all this, and I’m not gonna do it here with all these monsters running around! That teacher’s going to find out and look for us sooner or later.”

“If this place is crawling with people like these, then it’s probably safe to say the Pale City is infested,” Velvet says. “The sooner we move the sooner we can leave it behind and find a place that’s far away from whatever this madness has gripped it.” She bestows her hand to the boy again. “Come with us. If anyone tries to attack you, or Six, rest assured I will see to it they will never get within three feet of you.”

The boy glances at it, then at her, then at the hand again. “You mean it? Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.” She shrugs. “It beats being dead.”

“Oh, anything but dead is better than that! ‘Course I’ll come! I,” and he relaxes, and his hand is small, so small, in hers, it engulfs him completely, “I don’t wanna be on my own.”

“You won’t be,” Six says, and she steps around the bodies to put her hand over his. “Not if we don’t work together.”

“You have my word,” Velvet begins. “Stay close, and don’t make too much noise. Can you do that for me?”

The boy nods vigorously. “Stay close and be quiet! Got it!”

“Good lad. Welcome aboard, Mono.”

(A daemon like her cannot feel warm anymore. Only the hot tang of blood can elicit the ephemeral memory of what it used to be. Yet there’s the sensation of it building in her chest, and in the back of her head—kernels of flame sparked by flint and tinder. It’s a gentle, fierce little fire fighting not to die.

Maybe it’s too much hope for, after all that’s been done in the name of vengeance, or maybe it’s too little, knowing that maybe, just maybe, Six will forsake the kindness given her and cave in to the hunger. Maybe Mono will flee if it becomes too much for him to bear, or fight her with that dogged, suicidal determination he showed the students with all the improvised props he finds everywhere.

Maybe, if there truly is no way out and all recourse is spent, Velvet will show them the same mercy she showed Innominat and consume them. And then—

_No._

She crushes the thought, any such thought, from surfacing.

This is her world now, regardless if it's temporary or permanent. Whether or not this was done out of punishment for her sins or a means of atonement is irrelevant to the greater picture she has put together, and as much as Velvet would like an answer she knows deep down she is unlikely if ever to receive one so clear-cut. This world is tainted with darkness and gripped the people of the Pale City and those beyond its towers in a vice they can’t free themselves from. Only the television sets seem to placate them, and when they pass the crowds by Velvet will feel that pang of pity next to that fire of love and fierce protection for these children bent and tested by the elements and the damned.

It doesn’t matter if the Cityfolk were brought to heel by this malady, or bought it upon themselves. Maybe it did at one point.

Maybe, but the past was the past. The tall, thin man in the pressed suit and hat is a bigger concern. He won’t afford to give them rest.

_Go ahead. Make your move,_ Velvet directs at the City from afar, when the children are asleep. _Whatever you bring to the fore, I will push back tenfold._

Maybe something can be remade from these ruins, when the man and the TVs and the malevolence hanging off him are dealt with. Something good. Something better, where people could stop suffering and be free. If there are children out here that have been unbroken by him, then there must be adults, as well.

It’s always darkest before dawn. Day will come.

And it will be done, Velvet thinks. It _will_ be done, one way or another.

**Author's Note:**

> And so the day comes, indeed.
> 
> The Flesh? What about The Flesh? Velvet takes care of it - no problems!
> 
> Mono may or may not be _the_ Thin Man or his replacement? There's an extra hand to pick him up!
> 
> Six's hunger acts up? No worries, Velvet _does_ show her!
> 
> Everybody else? They're free, I tell ya! Free!
> 
> (Or: It's very hard to say if a happy ending is in the cards post-LN2 canon, but this story blatantly ignores canon the moment Velvet steps foot into the school. How Mono got there instead of waking up in the Hunter's forest, and how the whole shebang with the above aforementioned occurs is all up to your imagination. But there is a happy ending, everyone snaps out of the Transmission and the Thin Man and The Flesh's influence are no more, and Velvet may or may not be in the world permanently, so she makes do with keeping the kids company and working through each other's traumas to the best of her ability and while she has the chance.)


End file.
